In hospitals, clinics, and similar medical institutions, contamination continues to be of utmost concern. The prevention of the spread of communicable diseases is a major priority; therefore, disposable, single-use, patient care products have become prevalent. Such items are contaminated, once used, and can readily transmit disease. These items include such devices as hypodermic needles, intravenous needles, razors, scalpel blades, or other sharps—all of which are required to be disposed of at their point of usage under current guidelines of the United States Centers for Disease Control.
Various disposal containers for medical wastes have been proposed for the purpose of preventing an individual from gaining access to contaminated items such as sharps once the wastes have been deposited into the container, and many such disposal containers go far to accomplish this purpose. One such container is illustrated in U.S. Patent Application No. 2003/0213714 to Moats et al., which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Referring to FIGS. 1-3 of Moats et al., reproduced herein as FIGS. 1-3, a counter-balanced door 20 is initially biased to an open position, as illustrated in FIG. 1. When a soiled sharp is placed on the support surface 24 of the door 20, it slides or rolls down the support surface 24 causing the door 20 to rotate under the weight of the sharp. The door 20 rotates backwards about its pivot axis 22 toward the closed position illustrated in FIG. 3, and the sharp slides off of the surface of the door 20 and descends into the medical waste receptacle 12. The contoured portion 28 (commonly referred to as a cowl) of the lid 26 deflects the sharp toward the medical waste receptacle 12.
The disposal of small sized sharps presents a significant challenge, as a small sharp may not have adequate mass or inertia to slide down the surface of a door, in some circumstances. In such case, the medical professional must manually rotate the door in order to dispose of the soiled sharp. However, this manual action contradicts the purpose of the counter-balanced door, which is to limit any direct contact between the medical professional and the medical waste disposal system.
In view of the foregoing challenge, it would be beneficial to minimize the coefficient of friction between the door and the medical waste. Decreasing the coefficient of friction would promote sliding or rolling of the small sized sharps along the surface of the door and preclude the medical professional from physically contacting the medical waste disposal system. Accordingly, it is desirable to enhance the material properties of the pivoting door to minimize the coefficient of friction between the pivoting door and the medical waste positioned thereon.
Furthermore, a door of a medical waste disposal system is commonly formed from a polymeric material using an injection molding or other molding process. A conventional molded part may exhibit warpage and/or exhibit poor dimensional stability. If a counterbalanced door, such as the door 20 illustrated in Moats et al., is dimensionally unstable or significantly warped, it may not rotate properly. A dimensional instability and/or warpage shifts the center of gravity of the door, thereby inhibiting or disturbing the auto-rotation feature. Moreover, a dimensional instability may undesirably cause the door to inadvertently contact another surface of the disposal system, yet again inhibiting or disturbing the auto-rotation feature of the door. Accordingly, it is also desirable to enhance the material properties of the counterbalanced door to minimize any dimensional instability or warpage.